Family can't find a home because of disability, says Prestatyn mother

Desperate mother of six-year-old Carson said finding a new home is impossible due to disability benefits stigma from landlords

David Jones and Sabrina Jones with son Carson who suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy

The disabled mother of a young son with a fatal muscle-wasting disease says the stigma attached to benefit recipients is frustrating her efforts to find a new home.

Sabrina Jones, of Prestatyn, says she has faced discrimination from landlords and estate agents as she tries to find a property better suited to the needs of six-year-old Carson, who is expected to be completely reliant on a wheelchair by the time he’s a teenager.

The 39-year-old says some landlords react with “horror” when they learn that she receives disability benefit, but insists she is a good tenant and calls for each case to be judged on its merits.

While facing an uncertain future at her current home, Ms Jones must contend with the frustration of house-hunting while dealing with Carson’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which is expected to claim his life in his early 20s.

She is herself a manifesting carrier of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which has given her a serious heart condition and muscle weakness.

Ms Jones said: “I’ve been a carrier from birth but I started having symptoms at 21 and was diagnosed with the heart condition.

“I get out of breath easily and suffer from fatigue and extreme tiredness. I’ve had a pacemaker since 2001 and I get chest pains and leg pains.”

When Carson was born, he was found to have Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a condition which affects about one in 3,600 boys.

Ms Jones said: “When he was a baby, he walked late but managed quite well. His legs are weak now and he uses a wheelchair when we go out, but it will progress until it affects all his muscles.

“He’s expected to be permanently wheelchair-bound by the time he’s a teenager and his life expectancy is his early 20s.”

While Ms Jones and Carson’s father David Jones are separated, all three live in the same privately rented two-bedroom property.

Ms Jones hopes to find a three-bedroom property with room for her son’s wheelchair but says her circumstances have made it difficult to find a new home.

She said: “We need to be under the same roof because I act as Carson’s carer and David acts as my carer. Carson will need more space in the long term and we could need to adapt the property for a wheelchair at some point.

“But, as soon as you say you get disability benefit, they don’t want to know. Landlords get nervous when you say you are disabled and get benefit and they get nervous about the possibility of making changes to houses.

“I can understand landlords having reservations about housing benefit and I understand they may have had problems but they should look at each case on its merits.”

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Mark Thoma

Liverpool-born Mark joined the Daily Post in January 2014 after seven years as editor of its Merseyside sister title the Liverpool Post. He started out as a weekly news reporter on Wirral Newspapers, and spent seven years at the Daily Post and Liverpool Echo. He was The Press Association's regional correspondent for North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire from 1983 to 1997, before returning to the ECHO as deputy news editor. He has won a number of journalism awards, including the UK Press Gazzette Regional Reporter of the Year award, and in 1993 wrote a book on the James Bulger murder.